Born in Oprava (Troppau), Poland on 17.9.1891, died in Boston, USA on 6.6.1973. After graduating from the German state High School in 1910, he started taking art lessons from the academic painter Adolf Zdrazila. In 1910, Krommer served as a volunteer for one year at the Royal German infantry regiment Nr.1 in Troppau and Mostar. Here he became acquainted with a strange and completely new world, in which Byzantine, Еastern and Slavic cultures merged with one another. This impression was reflected in his first, and by some art critics the best works of art. During the Balkans crisis 1912/13 he spent a half year in that area as a cadet. In 1913, Kommer returned to art studies at Vienna Art Academy, under guidance of prof. Rudi Backer, R. Jettmar and Schmidt. His art study was interrupted by the First World War. He was wounded by shrapnel in his art in September 1914 and he recovered in 1915. Helmut Krommer visited Macedonia and Albania in 1917 where he felt sick of malaria. He went back to his studies in a short period in 1918 but in 1918 he fell sick of the Spanish fly. Miraculously, he recovered in 1919 and he continued his art studies in the national art academy in Baden Karlsruhe. In 1924 he made study trips to Italy and Greece. In the autumn 1928 he spent some time in Paris and 1932 in Riga after which he settles in Berlin. In Berlin it worked as Illustrator, writer, and a broadcast speaker. When Hitler came to power, he refused to divorce his Jewish wife, and he immigrates, firth to Czech Republic, then in 1939 to Yugoslavia , UK 1941 and finally in USA. His Macedonian works were part of his exhibition entitled “Yugoslavia” in 1933 in Berlin.
Stories
A good item for your own Macedonian collection
Here is one tip for everyone who wants to start his own collection of Macedonia-related art and photographs from the period 1850-1950: a German book